COL Report: Marijuana not harmless for child slaves who produce it.

Human trafficking and slavery takes place in every country of the world. The latest shocking example involves Vietnamese children trafficked into the UK and held as slaves to work in basement cannabis farms -- sometimes in the very heart of London itself. Even more shocking is that some of these children are actually being prosecuted as criminals by British authorities.

LONDON, ENGLAND (Catholic Online) - An estimated 90 percent of the cannabis consumed in England is being produced domestically with nearly all of it grown and traded by Vietnamese criminal gangs.

Teenage children are taken into bondage in Vietnam. The most common reason involves family debt. Vietnam is one of the poorest countries of Southeast Asia and is heavily dependent on exported labor and remittances from overseas workers. Some of those children are sold to repay family debt, others are simply tricked by the false promise of a better life overseas. Sadly, once on their way to their promised land, victims find themselves ensnared in the sinister underworld of human trafficking where they are employed as slave laborers or prostitutes.

Not all of the victims are kidnapped, rather many of them are use looking to leave Vietnam and travel overseas to find work. But when these kids run afoul of human traffickers, they commonly find themselves and their families being assessed as much as $20,000 to be smuggled into Europe. That sum is so great that it is nearly impossible for the victims to pay it off. Few victims, if any, are made aware of the sum until they are in the clutches of the traffickers and it is too late to do anything about it.

As a matter of course, traffickers intimidate the children by threatening to harm their families back in Vietnam. This intimidation means that the children often cooperate with their slavers, even when discovered by authorities. When questioned, they often lie to protect their captors or simply remain silent. 

Once these children arrive in England, they are put to work in houses and basements that are frequently guided and set up for the sole purpose of mass producing cannabis. Windows are blacked out, and heat lamps are used to help grow the plants. The child slaves may toil under these harsh conditions for years.

On occasion, police manage to bust these operations taking into custody traffickers and children alike. However, many of the children who have been recovered by authorities have refused to speak up and cooperate, out of fear of retaliation. Therefore, instead of being treated as the victims they are, they are often prosecuted as criminals.

And for the recovered children whom authorities plan to save, their plight hasn't ended either. Authorities report that many of these children are under extreme pressure to abscond from care and return to their captors.

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Debt bondage is a common form of modern-day slavery. It capitalizes on the desire of many people, particularly the young, to escape extreme poverty and to seek better opportunities for themselves. But these optimistic youths from around the world are often prime targets for human traffickers who promise to help, but ultimately do deliberate and egregious harm in the name of greed.

Authorities explain that the Vietnamese human trafficking organizations are particularly well organized, a trait which is helping them to corner the black market on cannabis in the UK. The fact that these children are desperate to stay in Europe only complicates the problem.

Still, British authorities should reevaluate how these children are treated if they want to address the problem. Instead of treating the children as criminals, they must recognize them as victims of both circumstance and crime. Once this is acknowledged, then the path forward lies in coordinating with Vietnamese officials to protect families back home and to provide rescue and opportunity for the children in England. 

Of course, much of this evil would not be happening if not for the popularity of the drug on the streets. A point that must be appreciated if these children are to be saved.

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